Emile Blondet thus turned adrift had contrived to gain distinction in
Paris, but so far it was rather a name than a practical result.
Emile's indolence, recklessness, and happy-go-lucky ways drove his
real father to despair; and when that father died, a half-ruined man,
turned out of office by one of the political reactions so frequent
under the Restoration, it was with a mind uneasy as to the future of a
man endowed with the most brilliant qualities.
Emile Blondet found support in a friendship with a Mlle. de
Troisville, whom he had known before her marriage with the Comte de
Montcornet. His mother was living when the Troisvilles came back after
the emigration; she was related to the family, distantly it is true,
but the connection was close enough to allow her to introduce Emile to
the house. She, poor woman, foresaw the future. She knew that when she
died her son would lose both mother and father, a thought which made
death doubly bitter, so she tried to interest others in him. She
encouraged the liking that sprang up between Emile and the eldest
daughter of the house of Troisville; but while the liking was
exceedingly strong on the young lady's part, a marriage was out of the
question. It was a romance on the pattern of Paul et Virginie.
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